It's not hard to properly identify an owl, and they typically hire really good people for that stuff. Source: my [relative] used to work for the forest service as an ornithologist.
Also: if they accidentally kill some non invasive birds by accident, that's still less destructive than letting the invasive species crowd out the original ecosystem.
Do you know what the forest service does? They are a conservationist organization within the US government. It's one of the most unambiguously positive parts of the government.
My relative would tag specimens of protected and endangered species of owls, note their locations, and then prevent loggers from destroying those habitats. [Relative] is a hippie environmentalist, and they literally would not have taken a job that harms animals.
Killing invasive species protects countless other species from extinction, so it has to be done. Those invasive species have their own habitat elsewhere, so they're not threatened, and they have to go.
Habitat loss making it harder for native owls to compete against invasive owls, so the US solution is to start killing owls and hope for the best
If they're killing the invasive species, that's actually a good call.
If
The plan is to cull 90 percent of the population, so if there are one in ten misidentifications it will be a failure.
It's not hard to properly identify an owl, and they typically hire really good people for that stuff. Source: my [relative] used to work for the forest service as an ornithologist.
Also: if they accidentally kill some non invasive birds by accident, that's still less destructive than letting the invasive species crowd out the original ecosystem.
Thank god it's not like some fish where half.the juvenile stages look the same.
This sounds like a betrayal equivalent to if Jane Goodall used her skills to help exterminate a tribe of gorillas
Do you know what the forest service does? They are a conservationist organization within the US government. It's one of the most unambiguously positive parts of the government.
My relative would tag specimens of protected and endangered species of owls, note their locations, and then prevent loggers from destroying those habitats. [Relative] is a hippie environmentalist, and they literally would not have taken a job that harms animals.
More info on the forest service PDF download
Killing invasive species protects countless other species from extinction, so it has to be done. Those invasive species have their own habitat elsewhere, so they're not threatened, and they have to go.